Wednesday, January 06, 2010

A blast from the (GlobalGiving) past

In late 1999 when Mari and I began to think about the concept of what is now GlobalGiving, we jotted down this "manifesto," a copy of which I found in my new year's cleaning. GlobalGiving has come a long way since then (and has a long way to go), and some of what we wrote ten years ago seems naive. But I am also struck by how many of the main principles remain the same.

Previously, Dennis was an economist at the World Bank (1986-2000), where he lived and/or worked for many years in Indonesia and Russia. His team there also created the Innovation Marketplace in 1998 and the Development Marketplace in early 2000. In 1984-85, Dennis worked for the Asian Development Bank and USAID in the Philippines, where he was an extra in one of Chuck Norris's best movies, "Missing in Action" (1984).

In his formative years, Dennis was a short-order cook and busboy at several restaurants, including the late Oasis Restaurant in Leitchfield, KY and the late Porthole Restaurant in Chapel Hill, NC.